


white noise

by besselfcn



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Dissociation, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Gore, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, fugue state
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 14:39:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14427615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besselfcn/pseuds/besselfcn
Summary: The past few weeks had been an agonizing slog. Gibraltar had gone bad. Cairo had gone worse. They were losing people, again, in numbers that made Reyes’ stomach turn and that he knew, he knew, would be lighting a fire under Jack’s ass. Drive the man to work harder, work longer, work himself down to the bone. See him holed up in his office, drinking too much and eating too little, going over the plans til his eyes twitched. See him down in the gym, throwing punches til his muscles screamed, til someone (Gabe, always Gabe) had to come peel his ass off the training room floor.But as far as Reyes could tell, no one had seen him for the last six hours. Hadn’t heard from him, either.It didn’t feel right. That was all.





	white noise

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an article about dissociative fugue by Sam Kean, which I tragically cannot find online. 
> 
> Thematically inspired by [Death Dream](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/frightenedrabbit/deathdream.html) by Frightened Rabbit.

Indiana looks different from the last time he saw it.

Sky’s wrong. Stars are shifted over, he thinks; but maybe that’s just the season. Never did go stargazing much in the wintertime; too much else to do, like making sure you stayed warm, and keeping the animals fed as well.

Air’s wrong too, though. Harder to reason with. Air always smelled a little like cowshit, back home. _Home?_ But it’s crisper now. Cleaner. Like nothing’s really touching it. Like he’s not even really touching it, the insides of his lungs all cold with how fresh it feels.

Air’s wrong. Sky’s wrong. Something else too, he thinks, but he can’t imagine what. So must not be that much of a deal.

He walks.

***

“Anyone seen the Strike-Commander?”

Reyes poses the question to a few different rooms; first his team, then Jack’s team, then an open dining hall. First time it was just a casual question, trying to pin down the location of the busiest man on the base. Second time--when neither Lena nor Angela had seen him for hours--was when he started getting nervous.

Now, when he asks a group of fifteen, sixteen, and he’s met with blank stairs and a few shakes of the head, is when he feels dread creeping into his gut.

It’s not like not seeing Jack for a few hours is unusual. Christ, he’s not that attached at the hip to the man, no matter what people like to tease about. It’s just--well. It’s one part instinct, one part paranoia. Which is about all Reyes is made of, these days.

The past few weeks had been an agonizing slog. Gibraltar had gone bad. Cairo had gone worse. They were losing people, again, in numbers that made Reyes’ stomach turn and that he knew, he _knew_ , would be lighting a fire under Jack’s ass. Drive the man to work harder, work longer, work himself down to the bone. See him holed up in his office, drinking too much and eating too little, going over the plans til his eyes twitched. See him down in the gym, throwing punches til his muscles screamed, til someone (Gabe, always Gabe) had to come peel his ass off the training room floor.

But as far as Reyes could tell, no one had seen him for the last six hours. Hadn’t heard from him, either.

It didn’t feel right. That was all.

But he tries. Tries not to worry. Tries not to think about it. Tries not to be a paranoid asshole about it, the way Jack is about damn near everything. He goes to bed, for the first time in fifteen-odd years, not knowing where Jack is.

It doesn’t last.

He’s knocking on Jack’s door before he can think otherwise--even though they agreed to these limits, even though _I’m not answering my comm_ means _don’t open the fucking door_ . Even though he’s got scan-in access anyway. Light’s on, at least. Not breaking the _don’t wake me up unless it’s for sex or death_ rule.

“Morrison,” he hisses, and then, when there isn’t an answer, “Jack.”

The silence clogs his throat.  

“Fuck you,” he says, in the same tone of voice, and presses his fingertips to the lock pad.

The _Access Granted_ message flashes green as the door slides open, and Jack’s--

Not there.

Reyes blinks once. Twice. His head’s gone ringing-blank as the world crashes in to fill the empty spot where Jack’s supposed to be.

He takes a step forward. Jack’s comm is on the bed. He stops. Jack’s not here.

His clothes aren’t here.

His rifle is.

“Fuck,” Reyes says, to nobody, and he runs.

***

His clothes start to feel hot, though not heavy. He strips down to the essentials and leaves the rest by the road. Some awful cape. Belt. Shoulder pads. Gauntlets. Enough metal stuck to his chest to stop a bullet.

Leaves himself with: Boots. Lycra shirt. Thick, padded pants.

Doesn’t feel much like farm clothes, but it’s fine. He doesn’t feel the extra weight. Not like he thinks he might. Just all feels unnecessary.

He thinks his feet should ache. They don’t. He thinks he should be tired. He isn’t.

Something’s holding him up, even if it isn’t him.

***

Gabriel drives.

He wants the radio--wants to shut up the yammering in his head, or at least drown it out--but he needs that silence. The rumble of the engine and grind of tire on dirt road is bad enough. He needs to hear every twig snap, every rustle of grass and clattering of stone that echoes across the fucking Swiss countryside.

How else are you supposed to find a superhuman, special ops Strike-Commander who’s got a five hour head start?

He’s already run the calculations in his head; runs them again, every so often, while glancing sidelong at the GPS at his dash. According to Athena, Jack scanned out of base at 1940. Gabriel had gone after him at 2350. It was 0020 now. Four hours forty. Average man can walk three miles in an hour at a normal pace. Make it four for Jack. Could’ve gotten eighteen miles by now. No need to rest, no need to slow down. Dampened fatigue signal to his brain, heightened adrenaline to tell him to go, go, go.

“Gabriel,” he hears in his ear, and forces the gears in his head to a stop.

“Ana,” he responds, curt.

He hears her crackled breathing, and in it all the questions she wants to ask but knows are stupid. _Did you find him yet? Have you found_ anything _? Where is he, Gabe?_

“I wish he’d kept his damn comm with him,” she sighs instead, and Gabriel huffs.

He comes to a fork and, without thinking, takes the right. Can’t overanalyze. Can’t outthink a man like Morrison; have to feel him out, instead.

“He doesn’t know what the hell a comm is right now,” Gabriel mutters.

“Still,” Ana bites back. “He makes this so fucking difficult.”

“Think that’s the idea.”

Ana breathes out in a long stream, the way she does when she’s lining up a shot.

“I hate you boys,” she whispers, and Gabriel can hear the way her voice cracks. He can picture her suddenly, all too easily--laid out on her bed, staring up at the ceiling like she can bore a hole through it to the sky, float up into it and see Jack from above.

“You wish you did,” he says. He hears something snap in the distance; turns towards it in time to see a deer skittering out of the woods. He keeps going.

“Yeah,” Ana sighs. “I really wish I did.”

They’re silent for a while, as Gabriel drives. He thinks he should have more to say.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ana says. “Copy.”

“Copy,” Gabriel replies, rote.

Her comm beeps offline, and then online again, all in a second--and Gabriel almost thinks she hit it on accident before he hears her.

“You’d better bring him home, Gabriel,” she says, and then it goes dead.

He feels bile rise in his stomach. He swallows it down.

It’s fine. It should be fine. This isn’t the worst, most stressful, most high-stakes thing he’s ever had to do--not by a longshot. Hell, maybe not even this _week_. But it’s… private, somehow. It’s secret. It’s him, and Jack, and only recently Amari, and that’s everyone in the world that knows this private, intimate piece of Jack.

And no--it doesn’t happen often. Only once before that Gabriel’s seen, in almost two decades of knowing him. But he remembers it like a brand burned into his mind: that _fucking_ week, near the tail end of the SEP. They’d just come back from a mission where Gabriel caught a bullet in the throat, where Jack had spent half the airlift back with his fingers dug into Gabriel’s neck, clamped onto Gabriel’s jugular, holding him together, spitting prayers and curses in equal measure that Gabriel doesn’t or doesn’t want to remember, now. He’d lived, in the end. He’d been fine, in the end.

But Jack wouldn’t stop wringing his hands. Staring at crook of Gabriel’s neck, where the thick scar tissue had sealed over the place where Jack’s fingers had dug in.

Gabriel remembers, from then, how he’d stop talking to you for a while, sometimes, no matter what you said to him. Remembers how he’d seem to stare away at something you couldn’t see.

Remembers when they finally fell into bed together for the first time afterwards, and in the morning he’d broken out of the base, without anyone noticing. Was gone for two days before someone took him in to the police San Andreas. No wallet, hardly any clothes, no idea where he’d been or where he was going or where the fuck he was.

Lucky someone took him in to the station in the first place. Lucky the cops there had recognized the description of the man who was, at the time, the most wanted man in America--Hair: Blonde, Eyes: Blue, Identifying Marks: Tattoo on the left bicep, SEP1001100.

Luckier still the SEP didn’t execute him for treason the minute he was back on base. Just sent him through three months of intensive psychological evals and debriefs and maybe, if they remembered to, therapy.

Gabriel doesn’t want to find out how lucky Jack Morrison can be in one lifetime.

Eighteen miles. He could’ve gotten eighteen miles, just walking. And maybe he’d run; god knows Jack could do it, could do double that on a bad day. Could be twenty-five, twenty-six miles away by now. Could be anywhere on the face of the fucking planet, really.

Could be facedown in the dirt.

Gabriel grips the steering wheel harder and keeps his foot steady on the gas, continues the crawl through the winding road.

***

Some part of his brain, his body, his gut, tells him to stop. Sit down for a while, have a rest.

But it’s not in control. It can’t be, because when he stops, it stops. When he stops, the rest of him rises up, in fear and mounting panic.

_If you stop, they’ll find you. If they find you, they’ll kill you. If they kill you, they’ll kill them._

He can’t make sense from it. But it doesn’t matter. Never did. All that matters are his feet: one-two, one-two, step, step, step, step.

Pushing on. Pushing down.

***

“Commander Reyes?”

Gabriel almost reaches up and turns the comm off. He doesn’t need the distraction, not now. Not now that it’s nearing half an hour of driving, some of it in fucking circles as he hit dead-ends and cul-de-sacs. Not now that his head and his chest both want to burst and he doesn’t know which one will go first.

“What do you want, McCree?”

“Nothin’,” McCree lies, through his fucking teeth. “Just got the impression something was goin’ down, wanted to know what it was.”

“If you needed to know what it was,” Gabriel grits out, “you’d know what it was.”

“Fair point, boss.” He clears his throat. “Just worried, is all.”

And, well, fuck. This is what he hates about McCree. Likes about him. Same difference. The way he’s just _honest_ \--can’t seem to help it, puts his heart out on his sleeve and invites anyone in to have a look.

“Everything’s fine, Jesse,” Gabriel says, which doesn’t sound convincing, even to him. “I’ll be back on base in time to read you a bedtime story, is that what you’re so worried about?”

To his credit, McCree laughs. “Aw, thanks, boss.”

The pause that follows is taut. He hears the click of a lighter on the other end; should reprimand him, probably, for smoking. Trying to break him of the habit. But it’s the least of Gabriel’s worries right now.

“I know it’s about the Strike-Commander,” McCree says, and Gabriel, again, considers just fucking hanging up. “Just. I’d appreciate knowing what’s goin’ on, you know?”

Gabriel hates his past self sometimes. Most of the time. Sometimes for specific things. This time for the promises he makes, the things he said to some shit-scared 17-year-old, trying to get him to join Commander Morrison’s pipe dream. _We’ll work you half to death, just like them. Put you through the worst shit of your life, just like them._ _But Jesse._ Fuck you, Gabriel. _I won’t ever lie to you_.

“Trust me,” he says. “If I find Jack Morrison dead in a ditch, I’ll call you first.”

“That’s all I ask, boss,” McCree says. He takes a long breath of what Gabriel assumes is mostly smoke.

“Okay,” Gabriel says. “I’m hanging up now. Copy.”

“Co-” McCree says, and Gabriel tosses his comm in the passenger seat.

How embarrassed would Jack be, Gabriel thinks wryly. If he were in his right mind. If he knew he’s got half the base worried about him, from Amari all the way down to McCree. Stirring shit at all levels, the way only Jack can do.

Gabriel doesn’t count. Doesn’t take that much to stir him up, when it comes to--

He sees a shock of blue on the side of the road.

A few meters ahead of that, a pair of gloves.

An ammo belt.

Gabriel pushes the gas until the countryside blurs.

***

Should be wetter at night than this. Should be hotter, too, maybe. Maybe. If it’s summer. Should be winter, he thinks. Should it? Shouldn’t be much of anything. Shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be like this. Should be six feet under, should be home, should be, should be.

There’s a car pulling up towards him, that slows down as it approaches. Muscles in his legs itch to run until he sees the man in the driver’s seat.

He’s a handsome man. Warm brown skin, neatly trimmed goatee, beanie fit over his head. Looks worried, but like he’s trying not to be.

“Hey, soldier,” the man says, leaning out the window. “You need a ride?”

He realizes abruptly that his legs ache. That his lungs hurt. That he wants to cry, and doesn’t understand it.

“I think so,” he says, and he stumbles towards the passenger seat.

When he sinks in it’s like he melts.

***

They pick up Jack’s armor on the way back. When Gabriel stops the car each time, part of him’s worried Jack’s going to jump out; the rest of him knows he won’t. Saw the way Jack slumped down in the seat and looked for all the world like he might never move again.

Gabriel presses everything about himself that he can afford to down into a little packet in the center of his chest as they drive.

“You know where you are, buddy?” he asks, slow and easy, a drawl he uses during an interrogation.

“Indiana,” Jack says. “But I’m wrong.”

Gabriel swallows hard.

“Know your name?”

Shakes his head.

“Know mine?”

Jack thinks on that one for a little longer; looks at him with a scrutinizing gaze. “No,” he says finally, but he sounds ashamed.

“That’s alright,” Gabriel says. Lies? Means it? He’s too fucking tired to tell.

They drive for another five minutes, and then Jack taps his shoulder.

Gabriel looks over--and he stares for a minute, at Jack’s palm, turned up on the center console. He looks at Gabriel expectantly.

Gabriel slots his fingers into Jack’s, his hand trembling as he closes his fist.

Jack hums happily, and he closes his eyes and slumps back in the seat.

***

He’s practically carried into the bed, which is nice. It looks like his room. It doesn’t. It’s too sterile, here. Everything white and blue.

“Could use some red,” he says, but the man doesn’t seem to get his joke. He doesn’t bother telling it again.

His hands are shaking. So’s the rest of him. He strips down to his boxers and crawls into the bed; can manage that, at least. That seems right.

The man crawls in after him. That seems right, too.

“Goodnight,” he says, and the man wraps his arms around him, like a vice, and maybe he ought to feel scared but he doesn’t.

“Goodnight,” the man whispers, and his voice cracks, and Jack feels hot tears on his shoulder and thinks maybe he should cry too but he can’t and he doesn’t and he wants, more than anything, to know why.

***

Jack comes back to himself in the middle of the night.

Gabriel knows because Jack shakes him awake, gasping for air.

“Hey,” he breathes. “Hey. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“In the morning, Morrison.”

“I’m sorry, Gabe.”

Gabriel kisses him, and he shocks himself with how hungry it is.

“In the morning,” he repeats, and Jack curls up into his chest.

***

In the morning it hits him like a freight train.

Not the physical consequence of it--SEP had done more than enough so that a few hours of walking didn’t even register on Jack’s body anymore. But the mental side of it--the rush of memories, the suppressed panic, the ride home with Gabe--it doesn’t have the courtesy to come in waves. It knocks him out of bed, sends him staggering towards the bathroom to retch all the nothing he’d eaten the day before into the toilet.

Gabe, the god damn piece of shit he is, ambushes him while he’s brushing his teeth.

“So,” Gabe says, and he’s leaning against the doorframe, trying to make himself look casual of all things. “You wanna talk about it?”

Jack spits into the sink. “No.”

“Too bad. Talk about it.”

Jack brushes past Gabe, back into the bedroom. Checks his phone--6 missed messages from Ana. One from McCree. Two from Angela, and an appointment reminder she’d so kindly booked for him already.

“What’s there to talk about,” he says, not looking Gabe in the eye. He tosses his phone face-down onto the bed. “You know what happened. You’ve seen it.”

“Yeah, I’ve _seen_ it,” Gabe snaps. “Once. In twenty years. Now twice. Forgive me if I wanna know what triggered you to lose your god damn mind this time, Jackie.”

He snaps his jaw shut, teeth clacking. he seems to regret the nickname as soon as he says it; how much it betrays, at least. Fear. Concern. Something else, that they both tamp down.

Jack runs his fingernails across his scalp. “It’s fucking stupid,” he admits.

“Try me.”

Jack doesn’t look at him again. “I saw the statue.”

There’s a silence that Jack feels down to his bones.

“The statue,” Gabe says, and Jack’s amazed he hasn’t laughed yet, to be honest.

“Yeah.”

“Of you?”

“No, the other massive fucking statue set up outside Overwatch.”

“Alright, fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

Jack sinks down onto the bed. Gabe follows him.

“You see that statue every damn day,” Gabe points out. “That’s not what caused this.”

He tilts his head towards the ceiling. His neck, and all the tension in it, aches like hell.

“We sent a bunch of kids to die, Gabe,” he says, so soft that if Gabe weren’t next to him, he’s not sure he’d hear. “I was reading all their files. Going through next of kin. Shit like that. Shit I do every day, these days. Telling people who we killed, this time. And I felt like I was going to suffocate, so I told myself, gotta clear your fucking head, Morrison. So I took a walk. And I saw the statue. And I thought. Most of those kids are younger than I was, when they made that thing. And. If this keeps going. If Overwatch stays running. I’m just gonna keep sending them off to die. And I’m gonna keep living. And that statue’s gonna stay right there, even after we’re in the ground. And no one’s gonna know any of their fucking names. And they’ll all know mine.”

He forces himself to look at Gabe. To stay with his eyes trained on his face, watching for--for anything. For something to hold onto. For something to ground him.

“You’re not immortal, Jack,” Gabe says finally, and his face is unreadable but his fingers grip Jack’s so tight they almost hurt. “They’ll forget about you, too.”

“I won’t,” Jack breathes, and he doesn’t know why he says it, but it feels suddenly heavy as it leaves his lips. He won’t. He can’t. He’ll go to his grave, being Jack Morrison.

“You won’t,” Gabe agrees. “I won’t,” and he digs his fingers into Jack’s shirt, pulls him down to the bed.

“I want to.”

“I don’t.”

“Please.”

“No.”

Gabe rolls on top of him, presses their foreheads together. He doesn’t make any move to undress Jack; just lays there, a heavy weight, like he can press something between them like flowers in a book. He stays there, and he breathes, and Jack wonders for a moment what it’s like. To see Jack, and to like what he sees. To want to know him.

If it’s anything like how he sees Gabe. Something important. Something he doesn’t want to walk away from. Something worth remembering.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a line in the comments below or @besselfcn on tumblr.


End file.
